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| 1. Are images vital
sources of historical knowledge that have been insufficiently exploited? |
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images
as sources Lynn Hunt, 5-31-03, 5:48 PM |
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RE: images as sources Wayne
Hanley, 6-6-03, 9:29 AM |
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RE: Images as Sources (June
22, 2003) Barbara Day-Hickman, 6-22-03,
4:40 PM |
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reading
images Lynn Hunt, 6-23-03, 10:44 PM |
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historical knowledge Vivian
Cameron, 7-5-03,
5:15 PM |
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Some belated comments Warren
Roberts, 7-9-03,
10:53 AM |
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A postscript Warren
Roberts 7-9-03, 11:28 AM |
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More on images as sources Joan
B. Landes, 7-12-03,
2:33 PM |
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RE: More on images as
sources Vivian Cameron
7-26-03, 4:22 PM |
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| Subject: |
Some belated
comments |
| Posted
By: |
Warren Roberts |
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| Date
Posted: |
7-9-03, 10:53
AM |
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I’ve avoided this question up to now because of the word “knowledge,” which
isn’t the word I would use to explain what images have
meant to me. Images have added to my understanding of
the Revolution. For me the key word is “understanding.” But
yes, images do have knowledge that isn’t found in other
sources, meaning texts. As I proceed to my first point,
I’m not certain if what I’m about to say pertains to “knowledge” or “understanding,” but
let me make the point anyway. Images show us something.
Texts can’t do that. To read about the events that took
place in the Place de Grève on 14 July and 22
July 1789 is one thing; to see what happened, which we
can do through images, is something else, or at least
it is for me. By comparing images of crowds in action
on these two days I have acquired understanding, and
perhaps knowledge that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
I know that different illustrators depicted crowds differently
on these two days, and by scrutinizing these differences
I am able to achieve fuller understanding of the events;
also I am able to see something of the illustrators’ own
responses to the events they depicted. For me this is
part of the actual history of the Revolution: the Revolution
wasn’t just what happened, the events themselves, but
how people responded to them. In the case of illustrators
who made images of the Revolution this is of particular
importance because their images, when disseminated, helped
define the Revolution—in some measure—for contemporaries
whose understanding of events was influenced by the images
they saw.
Images have much to say about particular spaces in Paris
that were important to the Revolution. Let me take one
of them, the Place Louis XV\Place de la Révolution.
Prieur’s 5th tableau, The busts of the Duc D’Orleans
and Necker are carried in triumph and broken in the place
Louis XV, shows the first eruption of violence in the
Paris Insurrection on the afternoon of July 12, as Parisians
clash with German guards in the center of the Place Louis
XV below the equestrian statue of Louis XV. As was often
the case with Prieur, the illustration is scripted; less
accurate than other depictions of this event, it shows
the violence taking place at the base of Bouchardon’s
LOUIS XV equestrian statue, rather than at the far end
of the place Louis XV or inside the adjacent tuileries
gardens, the actual scene of the conflict, according
to other images and textual accounts of this event. Framing
the image as he did, with violence taking place directly
under the Louis XV equestrian statue, and with the king
looking down on savage fighting, Prieur made a commentary
on the Place Louis XV. The Place Louis XV was built in
honor of a king who
The Place Louis XV was built in honor of a king who became
the object of popular rumor, ridicule, and hostility,
and when Bouchardon’s equestrian statue was installed
in 1763 spies overheard Parisians mocking the king. Workers
had to clean graffiti from the monument after the time
of its installation. Images by other illustrators offer
a more accurate depiction of what happened in the Place
XV on July 12 than does Prieur’s image. Yet Prieur’s
scripted image captures something that was very real,
hostility in Paris to a king who—historians now feel—helped
undermine the institution of monarchy.
Helman and Monnet’s engraving, “Execution of Louis
Capet in the Place de la Révolution,” can
be seen as a sequel to Prieur’s tableau. This image
shows a scaffold installed in the Place de la Revolution,
the former Place Louis XV, a short distance from the
pedestal of Bouchardon’s Louis XV monument, from
which the equestrian statue had been torn away. The guillotine
and the pedestal, shorn of the Louis XV equestrian statue,
are objects that say much about this space and its importance
to the Revolution. Images tell us much about other places,
other physical spaces that were important to the Revolution,
within which events took place that helped define the
Revolution in its various stages. Spaces such as the
Place de Grève and the Place Louis XV were heavy
with symbolic meaning for people who experienced the
Revolution. Space and memory contributed to the dynamics
of crowds in action. Images help me to understand this
dynamic. |
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